Sermons & Meditations

Isaiah 64:1-9; Mark 13:24-37
Presented November 27, 2011, by Joel Kline
The First Sunday of Advent

Early on in my experience as a pastor, I struggled a great deal with my own sense of calling. Is the pastoral ministry the right “fit” for me, I frequently wondered, particularly since I found myself frustrated and impatient with the disparity that all too often exists between what the church proclaims and how that same church acts. The questions have never fully disappeared—indeed, I suspect they never should!—but I did begin to recognize how important it was for me to look inwardly, to examine the inconsistencies in my own life before investing so much energy lamenting any disparity I noted in the lives of others and in the church community. In other words, I had my own work to do, and in response, I began to develop a set of spiritual disciplines, meeting regularly with a spiritual director or guide through the years and creating intentional times for prayer and meditation and journaling—times for honest confession of my own shortcomings and brokenness every bit as much as those yearnings deep within me for healing and wholeness in the world around me, for a deepening taste of justice and compassion, peace and new life.

During those beginning years of ministry I recall hearing a fellow pastor talking about the hymnody of the church, pointing out how we perhaps overstate and “over-sing” the commitments we make to our faith. You will remember the familiar hymn that begins, “Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee.”  In one of the stanzas we sing, “Take my silver and my gold; not a mite would I withhold.” Even now, every time I hear or read or sing those words, I have to stop and ask myself, “Really? As one living in the midst of a materialistic culture that assigns personal value in terms of how much we earn and possess, can I honestly claim that I am willing to place everything that I own in the hands of God?”

In the haunting Advent hymn we sang as worship began this morning, O Come, O Come, Immanuel, we pray the prayer, O come, desire of nations, bind all peoples in one heart and mind. Bid envy, strife, and quarrel cease. Fill the whole world with heaven’s peace. Again, I find myself needing to ask, “Is this a prayer I can freely make my own? How willingly do I let go of the envy and the quarreling and the strife buried deep in my own heart and soul; am I able to cast aside those yearnings for success and status and recognition that may well keep me from respecting and honoring the gifts of others; am I willing to take on the heart of a servant, setting aside my own pursuits when necessary to help bring about a deepening peace and unity to human life?”

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Genesis 28:10-22
Presented November 13, 2011, by Joel Kline
The Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost
Progressive Brethren Gathering

Perhaps you remember the Dr. Seuss book, And to Think I Saw it on Mulberry Street. It’s the delightful tale of a little boy who, while walking home, “sees” a wonderful circus parade coming down the street. When he reaches home, the youngster enthusiastically describes what he has seen to his father in vivid detail. The father, however, is skeptical, repeatedly questioning his son, “What really happened on Mulberry Street?” The story is continually eroded until the boy finally acknowledges that what he actually saw on Mulberry Street was a “plain horse and wagon.”

At one level And to Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street is a fun and delightful Dr. Seuss story, yet at another level it points to one of our culture’s biases, a suspicion of the imagination, a tendency to look with dismay upon anything but the most concrete and most visible. It’s a perspective that makes faith difficult for many in our day, for the very essence of faith demands an ability to look beyond ourselves, to envision something greater than we are, to trust—all appearances to the contrary—that a new world is unfolding. A new world is in the works.

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Isaiah 42:10-16; Matthew 22:1-14
Presented October 9, 2011, by Joel Kline
The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

You and I live in a time when increasing numbers of people in our society and world dismiss the church as irrelevant. Some find themselves drawn to the life and example of Jesus, but sadly perceive the church to have precious little to do with the way of life Jesus came living and proclaiming—a way of living characterized by self-giving love and servanthood, compassion and mercy, justice and peace, forgiveness and grace beyond measure. You may remember hearing that Mahatma Gandhi, that great leader of a nonviolent movement in India, once remarked that Christians seem to be the only people who fail to recognize just how deeply was Jesus committed to the ways of nonviolence and peacemaking.

Sad—isn’t it?—that many who claim to follow Jesus little emulate his thirst for justice, peace, compassion, and right living. Rather than prodding one another to consider whether they are willing to follow Jesus, all too many Christian traditions place focus instead upon right belief, urging their members to question, What do I believe about Jesus? In his book The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus Peter Gomes asserts, “It is easier to talk about Jesus than it is to talk about what Jesus talked about!” It is easier to focus on doctrinal issues than on Christian discipleship, but in the process the content of Jesus’ message is all too frequently ignored, if not fully lost.

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Isaiah 5:1-7; Matthew 21:33-46
Presented October 2, 2011, by Joel Kline
The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

In Hebrew literature the image of a vineyard is frequently used to speak of Israel, the community of God’s people. In this morning’s lesson from Isaiah, chapter 5, for example, a love song is being sung to the vineyard, a love song underscoring how deeply the landowner, God, cares for and has tended the land, digging and clearing the area of stones, planting choice vines in the soil. But the tenor quickly shifts from love song to lament, as the poet notes that the land, intended to yield lush grapes, instead yields only wild grapes. Concludes the prophet, “For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are God’s pleasant planting; [yet] God expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry” (5:7).

These are powerful words reminding us that faith and transformation go hand in hand. The ancient Israelites lost sight of this fundamental truth, in the process allowing violence and bloodshed to replace justice; instead of living rightly and compassionately, instead of embracing their partnership with God, the people turned a deaf ear to the cries of the poor and the oppressed in their midst. The vineyard’s vision had become blurred; no longer did the people take hold of their high calling, to be the light of the world and to give witness to a new reality, life in God’s realm. The people ignore what Isaiah, later in his writings, affirms as Israel’s call, “to blossom and put forth shoots, and fill the whole world with fruits” of justice, compassion, peace, and right living (see Isaiah 27:6).

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Matthew 21:28-3; Philippians 2:1-13
Presented September 25, 2011, by Joel Kline
The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Back in the mid-1800s, when our nation was deeply divided and a civil war loomed ahead of us, Frederick Douglass was heard to assert, “I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with legs.” You may remember his story, how he escaped from slavery, attesting that, upon experiencing freedom, he “lived more in one day than in a year of [his] slave life.”  Douglass soon became a noted leader of the abolitionist movement and a powerful voice for justice.

Frederick Douglass’s reflections offer significant reminder that prayer is not simply a matter of sitting on our tails and waiting for God to act, nor is it intended to be an excuse for us to take less responsibility than the situation demands. Rather, in prayerful communion with God we may well find ourselves challenged to embark upon risky action. Prayer is not a substitute for action. Instead, prayer and action are deeply intertwined; prayer and action go hand in hand.

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